Central Valley

Applications to carry concealed weapons have spiked just about everywhere in Northern California in recent months, part of the ominous national trend. A Feb. 9 report in the Yuba-Sutter Appeal-Democrat notes the surge in those two counties which lie in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills, directly east of the Emerald Triangle. "There's been a dramatic increase in applications in the last few years," Yuba Sheriff Steve Durfor said. "I think it's reflective of uncertainty in the world and more people feeling vulnerable with increased talk of gun control restrictions." Sutter County Sheriff J. Paul Parker reported the same trend: "Five years ago, we had 650 permits. Now we're at 1,174."

For years, police forces in the Emerald Triangle and elsewhere around backcountry California have been hyping an increasing presence in the region's forests of Mexican and Russian cannabis grow ops linked to criminal mafias and cartels based abroad. Now, refreshingly, a Los Angeles Times story of Jan. 2, "Roots of pot cultivation hard to trace," takes a dispassionate look at the question. The piece opens with a slightly lurid lead about camo-clad federal agents ready to "lock-and-load" in a stake-out on National Forest land in Kern County, fearing attack by Mexican cartel gunmen. But at the end, the piece basically tells us not to believe the hype:

On July 25, the Los Angeles, the City Counted voted 14-0 to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. Each of the 762 dispensaries that have registered with the city are to be sent a letter ordering them to shut down immediately under threat of legal action. Cannabis advocates packed the council chambers and met the vote with jeers; more than a dozen LAPD officers were called in to quell them. Under the ban, medical patients and their caregivers will be able to grow and share cannabis in small groups of three or less. In a seemingly contradictory move, the council also voted to instruct city staff to draw up an ordinance that would allow a group of about 170 dispensaries that registered with the city several years ago to remain open. (LAT, July 24)

Mark Bagdasarian, a cannabis dispensary owner in Clovis, Calif, already facing possession and distribution charges, was hit with federal money laundering charges July 16. Federal prosecutors say Bagdasarian laundered money through ATMs at his Buds 4 Life dispensaries in Tarpey Village and Friant. Bagdasarian pleaded not guilty to the new charges. Prosecutors say Bagdasarian would take cash from cannabis sales—illegal under federal law—and load it into the ATMs at the dispensaries, to be withdrawn by customers.

Medical marijuana patients and their supporters will rally in front of the federal building in Sacramento June 20 at 1:30 PM to protest a raid last week on the city's first permitted dispensary. On June 11, El Camino Wellness Center was raided by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and shut down, after having served thousands of Sacramento patients since 2008. Though no charges have been filed against the dispensary operators, the Internal Revenue Service has seized the facility's bank accounts.

A mother from California's Butte County appeared in court for a preliminary hearing June 11 to determine whether she should stand trial for breastfeeding her children while being a user of medical cannabis. Advocates have rallied around the case of Daisy Bram, 30, contending that she faces excessive prosecution on charges of felony child abuse and misdemeanor child endangerment stemming from a raid by county authorities on her home garden.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country's largest cannabis patients advocacy organization, filed suit in federal court Oct. 27 challenging the Obama administration's attempt to subvert local and state medical marijuana laws in California. ASA argues in its lawsuit that Obama's Department of Justice (DoJ) has "instituted a policy to dismantle the medical marijuana laws of the State of California and to coerce its municipalities to pass bans on medical marijuana dispensaries." The DoJ policy has involved aggressive SWAT-style raids, criminal prosecutions of medical marijuana patients and providers, and threats to local officials for merely implementing state law.

For the second time in less than a week, a judge issued a restraining order to prevent officials in California's Tulare County from pulling medicinal cannabis plants from a farm just north of Visalia. The order by Tulare County Superior Court Judge Paul Vortmann will remain in effect at least until Oct. 6, when another hearing on the case is scheduled. The ruling came in response to an application for a restraining order filed by Richard Daleman, who runs a business leasing small plots to about 40 clients to grow medicinal cannabis. All have doctors' recommendations to grow and smoke.